


Wishful Drinking

by miraphora



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Drinking, Everyone is Bisexual, F/F, F/M, Gen, Girls Kissing, In Memory of Carrie Fisher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 16:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10700508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraphora/pseuds/miraphora
Summary: ~ If I can't have a proper cup of caf, in a proper copper caf distiller, I'll have a cup of stim tea ~





	Wishful Drinking

There was not a whole lot to do on a frozen wasteland like Hoth. Yavin 4 had been humid and cloying, warm like the hazy volcanic beaches of the Lah’mu of Jyn’s childhood but without the refreshing sea breeze. Hoth, though, was a ball of ice. An unvarnished hell.

But if there was one constant in communities of sentient beings, regardless of the environment, it was hooch.

You could always get a drink to warm you.

Jyn’s accent gets softer when she’s drinking, like the erosion of her control can’t maintain the crisp edges of Imperial standard dialect against the legacy of star systems she’s slipped or blown her way through over the years. That nasal hint on her “i”s is all Corellia. A sibilant slip to her “s”s is Trandoshan. The chirring way she trails off into a drunken giggle, startling herself, is all Sullustan. When the clipped edge of a Coruscant consonant impinges on her murmured comment to Bodhi, it jars her. 

If anything, Leia Organa’s accent gets more imperious. She’s a princess, after all.

Jyn isn’t sure why they gravitate towards one another. An average being would loathe the daughter of an Imperial engineer responsible, regardless of secret revolutionary agenda, for the design and construction of a superweapon that had been used to obliterate their homeworld before their own eyes.

“Politicians in a rebellion don’t have the luxury of personal grudges,” Leia intones to her with exaggerated solemnity one evening, unwittingly echoing the general shape of Jyn’s words to Mon Mothma after the Rebellion had dragged her from that labor colony.

There are a lot of luxuries one sacrifices, in a rebellion. There are times where Jyn remembers the freedom of partisanship, the ability to cut losses and run, the self-preservation and simplicity--but swift on the heels comes a ringing reminder of the accompanying paranoia. The cold calculus and suspicions of people like General Draven aside, there are two luxuries that seems to thrive in rebellion: hope and trust.

On this particular night, Jyn is on the edge of relaxing, the Coruscant draining out of her voice with each sip of searing, clear liquor, when the Princess sweeps into the pilots’ lounge where they have gathered. The smuggler is dogging her heels, shaking a finger in a way Jyn has observed before--she knows his type. If he were wiser about the way he pursued his objectives and didn’t constantly rely on his over-estimated charms, bravado, and legitimately sublime piloting, he probably wouldn’t be walking around with a Hutt bounty on his head.

Jyn knows about that. She knows there’s a betting pool with the Intelligence officers as to how long it takes for Jabba’s considerable reach to snag the erstwhile smuggler--and she knows there’s concern that the Princess will be caught up in any net. She suspects it’s why Mon Mothma has given Leia more direct command duties on Hoth.

Leia sits next to Jyn on the narrow bench, their shoulders rubbing as the Princess leans closer and slides her fingers along the back of Jyn’s hand to drag her cheap metal cup close enough to inspect. 

“That rotgut,” she mutters derisively, her consonants tight and regulation.

Jyn cocks a brow, raises the cup with the princess’s hand still touching hers, noting the delay as she finally releases her hand. Takes another sip. “It gets the job done.”

“Her Highness has standards,” sneers Solo, standing a little too close, cant-hipped and arms crossed. 

Jyn eyes him beneath her lashes and takes another sip of her drink, the fumes clearing her sinuses better than a hot posset. She wonders if he realizes his derision is ruined by the despairing subtext he carries around with him like battered luggage.

“Most beings do when choosing a partner,” Leia fires back, a glint in her spice-dark eyes. 

“A drinking partner?” Jyn asks with a slight questioning lilt, just to stir the pot. 

Leia shoots her a quick smirk. “Of course.”

Solo’s charming face twitches with suspicion as he glances tightly between them, sensing subtext.

Leia unhooks a flask from her utility belt and takes Jyn’s cup from her yielding hand, tossing back the last of the raw liquor with a dramatically dismissive eyeroll. She holds the cup between her knees and unscrews the cap of the flask, pouring two fingers of smooth amber liquid in before handing it back. 

“Try that.” She takes her own dainty swig from the flask, but not without locking eyes challengingly with Solo as her lips seal around the rim. 

Jyn suppresses a smile and sniffs at the cup. “I’ve had Corellian brandy before, you know.” Her accent tips back toward propriety. She takes a small sip, lets the golden liquid, smooth and well-aged, sit on her tongue and cleanse the harsh burn of the raw still liquor from her palate before she swallows. 

This heat is gentler, less like the radiation of a burning planet. It takes more edges off.

Solo’s lips compress. “You took that from the Falcon! And you call *me* a scoundrel!”

Leia chuckles and tilts her pointed chin up. “You’re a smuggler. I’m sure more will find its way into your hold.”

“That’s not the point!”

Leia rubs shoulders with Jyn again, tops off her cup. The best way to handle Solo may not be to ignore him, but eventually he gives up and straddles a chair near the shuttle pilots. Bodhi isn’t drinking, but the look he gives Solo is admiring--Jyn knows he finds the smuggler’s piloting skills inspirational, because he’s told her. It’s mostly harmless, and Jyn can’t judge anyone for their heroes. 

She swirls the last of the brandy in her cup and then downs it, covering the top when Leia makes to pour more. “I’m good.”

Leia laughs like it means more than it does and shrugs, offering the flask to a pilot to has settled himself across from them. Antilles, Jyn is fairly certain, of the newly-minted Rogue Squadron. Jyn is glad the sacrifice of the men who followed her to Scarif has been recognized but it always twinges her with guilt--she had expected to die on that beach along with them.

The evening progresses, as they do. Skywalker wanders in at some point, settles next to Antilles, drinks the cheap swill and starts to list to the side. Leia is still holding court, still proper. Solo has become belligerent, mocking her accent.

“So proper, Your Highness.”

Leia’s dark eyes are bright with drink and fire. “Fancy tutors and a silver spoon are good for two things: making a proper cup of Alderaanian tea and putting half-witted scruffy-looking nerf herders in their place!”

The antagonism has reached its peak, as it does each time they come together. Jyn watches Solo’s face shutter in that petulant way, and he shoves back, not even stumbling a little though she suspects he couldn’t shoot straight if he tried.

“I know when I’m not wanted. Y’know, one of these days, Princess, someone is going to give you a proper--”

Skywalker slings an arm around Solo and drags him away before he can finish that. 

Jyn doesn’t try to control her face as she arches her brows. There’s no danger in anyone here seeing her constant skepticism and entertainment with the petty nonsense of too many people in too small and cold a base.

Leia purses her lips for a moment, murmuring something about a copper pot, then snorts and finishes the dregs of the brandy in the flask. “Men always think they’re the ones to give you a proper tupping, but I will tell you--”

She tilts her head and eyes Jyn conspiratorially. “If I can't have a proper cup of caf, in a proper copper caf distiller, I'll have a cup of stim tea.” She sing-songs it, laughingly, her upper crust edges still intact despite the brandy, and leans in startlingly quick to steal a kiss. Her lips are balm-soft on Jyn's and sweet with brandy, and the sensation evaporates immediately as she pulls back.

Jyn freezes, eyes wide, and watches warily as the princess sways up from the bench and tips her head to the pilots before leaving the room. At the door she brushes past a stilled and equally wary figure. Jyn meets Cassian’s eyes across the room, blinks once, and then shrugs the slightest bit. His face performs a series of acrobatics he reserves for her most ludicrous antics, before settling for impassive lips and exasperated eyes.

Jyn smiles slowly, and there is nothing proper about it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is total garbage and didn't come out at all how I intended but I'm entertained anyway. If someone else can do better justice to the idea of Leia and Jyn doing a "proper copper cup'a" Brit-off, please, take this and may the Force be with you.


End file.
